Recently, I began discussing some of my background research for Daughter of Blood  and The Wall of Night series. I’ve always been a history fan anyway, reading non-fiction history as well as historical fiction, so this has really just been a continuation of what I already do anyway. You know, for fun…

However, as always when you start delving into anything in depth, you start unearthing some eye-opening, ie “new to you”, facts. A subset of these for me has been historical instances of what I call “coming to the aid of the enemy.” In sporting parlance, it would be similar to scoring an “own goal.”

My first example derived from the Siege of the International Legations in Beijing, then Peking, during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. My second derives from the very famous Battle of Agincourt.

It’s well-known that the English army of Henry V was very badly outnumbered going into this fight, probably by around 4:1 in favour of the French. It’s also well-known that this was a victory of the longbow against a superior force of heavily armored knights — and a victory based on terrain as well, since the knights literally got bogged down in swampy ground once they charged.

What may be less well-known (and certainly made my eyes pop) is learning that the English army’s original fortified encampment was out of effective bow range of the French position. So they had to move. But instead of taking advantage of their vulnerability, the French army not only watched the English relocate, but also allowed them to re-establish their palisade of sharpened stakes, which protected the archers against cavalry attack.

Of course, as soon as they had done that the English archers started loosing arrows at the French, who then charged — but in far more hazardous conditions, as history records.

Coming to the aid of the enemy indeed!